Pan-India superstar

I THOROUGHLY enjoyed your cover story on Sridevi; she was the darling of the masses and will be missed (‘The bonny Boney bony lass’, March 11). Linguistic confines did not restrict Sridevi; she was truly a pan-India superstar. Lik...

I don’t think you can ignore the fame and the attention. It is the by-product of the work that I do. I love my work. In the last ten years, the work that I have done… I got so much to learn and I have enjoyed my work. And, in future, I hope that I keep on enjoying the work that I do.

Deepika Padukone

Actor

Was about to land! Wore a new jacket! Product in hair! Big sun glasses were put on! New bag pack positioned for capture! And then… the worst thing happened! The paps were not there! Shattered! Will not repeat this look and pray!

Karan Johar

Filmmaker, on Twitter, on the absence of the paparazzi at Mumbai airport, when he returned from London

He is like a diva when we go out. He wants all the attention—‘everybody look at me, everybody listen to me talking… I am wearing this watch, this is what I brought today’. And, we are like—‘Dude, we are not interested, we don’t want to listen to you talking’.

K.L. Rahul

Cricketer, on teammate Hardik Pandya

Sitting between BJP leaders B.S. Yeddyurappa and Katta Subramanya Naidu, who had gone to jail on corruption charges, Narendra Modi termed my government corrupt. He should have restrained himself from saying so, keeping in mind that he was sitting alongside those two.

Siddaramaiah

aperitif

Fallen bird

An airplane takes off from the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu a day after a US-Bangla Airlines flight carrying 71 people crashed in a field near the airport on March 12, killing 51 passengers | AFP

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party snacks

Party Snacks: March 25, 2018

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Poll vault: It was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s idea that leaders over 75 years old be kept away from active roles in the party and government, and instead mentor other members as part of the margdarshak mandal. Modi, however, is personally credited with naming B.S. Yeddyurappa, who recently turned 75, as the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate for Karnataka. BJP president Amit Shah, according to sources, supported Modi, and ensured that all the party banners wishing Yeddyurappa did not mention his age! | Illustrations by Jairaj T.G.

Party Snacks: March 25, 2018

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Locale networking: There was some interesting one-upmanship to be witnessed among the mandarins of the external affairs ministry, when the publicity division announced President Ramnath Kovind’s visit to Mauritius and Madagascar. Sanjay Panda, joint secretary, Indian Ocean Region, beamed when he described the Mauritius leg as extremely special, given India’s historical and cultural ties. The highlight, he said, was Kovind being the chief guest at its 50th independence day celebrations. Not to be outdone, Neena Malhotra, joint secretary for East and South Africa, emphasised that it was the first VVIP visit from India to Madagascar. The country, she said, was as large as France (French president Emmanuel Macron was touring India at that point) and 300 times the size of Mauritius.

Party Snacks: March 25, 2018

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Statue play: Sunil Deodhar, the man behind the BJP’s win in Tripura, has convinced the party to set up a statue of Tripura ruler Bikram Kishore Manikya in Belonia, in place of the Lenin statue that was vandalised shortly after the assembly poll results were announced. “Who should be remembered in Tripura, Lenin or the king who merged his country with India? We have to do justice,” said Deodhar. The BJP has already appointed a member of the royal family, Jishnu Debbarma, as the deputy chief minister. Jishnu’s brother, Bharat, however, is married to Trinamool Congress MP and actor Moon Moon Sen.

PEOPLE

People: March 25, 2018

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A brave battle: Days after Irrfan Khan revealed that he is suffering from a ‘rare disease’, speculation has been rife about what the disease might be. His wife Sutapa Sikdar, in a Facebook post, asked people to stop conjecturing. “I know curiosity germinates from concern, but let us turn our curiosity from what it is to what it should be,” she wrote. “Let us change the leaf. Let us not waste our precious energies to only know what it is and just pray to make it what it should be.” She also said that Irrfan is fighting every obstacle with tremendous grace and beauty | AFP

People: March 25, 2018

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Acting adult: Richa Chadha will be seen next in a biopic on Shakeela, the 1990s adult film star. Shakeela had started acting at the age of 16, and has appeared in several adult films in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. She became so popular that her films were dubbed into Chinese, Nepalese and other languages. Chadha said: “The film’s script was exciting, and it is a great story to tell. The story will make for a great watch for the audience.” The film is being directed by Indrajit Lankesh, and will release early next year | AFP

People: March 25, 2018

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An international affair: Actor Pankaj Tripathi’s first international feature film, Mango Dreams, for which he won the best actor award at the Cape Town International Film Market and Festival last year, will soon release on Netflix. In the film directed by John Upchurch, he plays a Muslim autorickshaw driver who befriends a Hindu doctor as they search for the doctor’s childhood home. He will also soon be seen in Vikas Bahl’s upcoming Super 30, in which he plays the antagonist | Amey Mansabdar

People: March 25, 2018

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Shaping destinies: Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, whose film The Shape of Water won four Oscars this year, recently launched the Jenkins-Del Toro International Film Scholarship, an annual award of $60,000 for an aspiring Mexican filmmaker to study abroad. The announcement was made in his native city Guadalajara, where he had gone to attend a film festival. “If we change a life, if we change a history, we change a generation,” he said | AFP

People: March 25, 2018

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French toast: Chef apprentice Kavya Varghese will be the only Indian to participate in the French food festival to be held in the UAE from March 21. Kavya, 22, is the French food promotion head chef at the Hilton Dubai, and is the youngest among the 20 chefs selected for the festival. Kavya—seen here with French ambassador to the UAE Ludovic Pouille—says she dreamt of becoming a French chef ever since she visited France with her parents in 2014.